The great faithfulness of our Lord shows itself in part
through communicating His love and care for us as He does
through His Word. I would ask you at this time to
attend to the word of the Lord. And they devoted themselves to
the apostles, teaching, and the fellowship to the breaking of
bread. And the prayers and awe came
upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were
being done through the apostles. And all who believed were
together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and belongings, and
distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking
bread in their homes, they received their food with glad
and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all
the people. And the Lord added to their
number day by day, those who were being saved.
And this is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. Dear Lord, we once again ask for
your blessing upon us as we hear these words.
Lord, help us to listen. Help us to listen well and to be
changed and transformed, not by the things that I say, but by
the things that you say. Through the power of your word
in which we trust, we ask through Christ our Lord.
Amen. Please be seated.
If you would grab your Bibles and turn to Acts Chapter 2, the
last section in Acts Chapter 2. Some of you are familiar with
the fact that I grew up about 100 miles north of here, a place
called Conneaut Lake, PA. And it was a fairly large sized
lake and we lived right on right alongside the lake.
And so my father had a speedboat and we spent a lot of our time
speeding around the lake, driving around the lake.
And as a family, we went swimming, we went fishing off
the boat, but largely we went skiing, water skiing off the
boat. Somewhere along my growing up
years, I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but my father
bought a sailing boat, a little sunfish sailing boat, one man
kind of a sailing boat. And I well remember the first
time that I took it for a spin. It was beautiful out, it was
wonderful. The wind was perfect and
everything worked absolutely wonderful.
It was sailing at its absolute best.
The boom saved free from all obstructions.
The center board and the rudder were worked perfectly by me.
The wind was perfect. I tacked around through the lake
all day, all day long. It was hours long process.
It was absolutely a perfect experience of being sailing
across that board. And I will say that as wonderful
as that first experience was, the next 100 times I never
repeated that there was always something wrong.
Everything. Now, it doesn't mean that
everything was bad from the next 100 times I went out sailing,
but sort of every the rest of the time that I went out, always
something happened. The Boone got caught up in the
ropes or I misplayed the center board or the rudder or the raw
problem with with the well in the boat, There was always a
problem. There's always something or I
tacked poorly through the time. Always.
It was never compared to that first experience, but I have to
say that that first experience didn't spoil sailing for me.
Rather, what it did is it put forward a model.
The rest of the time, most of the time was a good experience.
It just wasn't great. There were always some problems
there that were present and that first experience of sailing,
sailing at its best, kind of was always held forward as an image
or as a model for me of something that we were to, that
I was to aspire to as I went sailing.
I hope that I have as good a time out this time as I had that
very first time that I went along those lines.
Many of you know that we are working our way through the book
of Acts and we are focusing primarily upon three main
characteristics, the Holy Spirit, the Church, and the
world. And the interplay of those 3
characteristics come across very clearly in the book of Acts.
Part of them come. Part of that interplay happens
very powerfully in Acts chapter 2, which is the passage that we
looked at the past couple of weeks.
And here we're looking at the very last section of it.
It opens with a description of something that happens when the
Holy Spirit comes upon the church there, disguises that the
power of the Holy Spirit coming. And then you've got that middle
section that we looked at last week, which was Peter's sermon
where he explains what happened in the description of the power
of the Spirit. And here these last few verses
of the chapter 2 of the Book of Acts detail for us the results
of that action. So first you had the description
of the action, then you had the explanation by Peter of the
action in his sermon, and now we have the results of the effect
of this. And I like to think of this as a
church at its best. This is the first brief cameo of
what it looks like to be the Church of the people of God.
And it is a beautiful picture. Now, you might think to
yourself, well, of course it is. It's in the Bible and it's going
to be that way. But I will tell you that as we
continue to move through the book of Acts, we are going to
continue to run into periods and descriptions of the church where
the church deals with some immense problems internally as
well as external. They're going to struggle with
things. And we're going to look at them
as we look at the book of Acts. And we're going to see the
church failing to live up to the model that is put forward in
this first brief experience of this cameo of this beautiful
picture of what it looks like for a church to be filled with
the spirit. Because that's what's happened
here in the early part of the book of, of the chapter 2.
Here we have the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon the
people. They come upon the church.
And now Peter describes what takes place.
And in these final verses we say this is what a spirit filled
church looks like. Hebron is a great church.
There's a lot of wonderful things that take place here.
We have our problems, we have our failures.
We have difficulties in which we go through.
We also have some successes and across the board we want to be
the church at its best, and I think there's no better place to
look at that than in these verses.
We see what it means for a church to be at its best right
off the bat when we see that first of all, a church at its
best is a learning church, a learning church.
Look in verse 42, if you would with me and the church members,
the people, they devoted themselves to the apostles
teaching. They devoted themselves to the
apostles teaching. Now, of course, you got to
recognize what's happening here. We are right in the window of
the years after Jesus's death where the apostles were roaming
the earth, where the apostles were present there.
And Can you imagine the great joy?
Can you imagine what it would have been like to actually sit
in a room where Peter was saying, hey, I remember when
Jesus said this and when he did this or when John said it.
Look, this is what it meant when Christ went to the cross and
died for us, or this is what it looked like when he was
resurrected. Can you imagine what it would
have been like to sit at the disciples feet as they were
talking and saying, look, these are the things that I remember
and the excitement in which they would talk about Jesus Christ
next to having Jesus himself present, speaking to them.
What could have been better, possibly better than having the
disciples, the apostles, They're saying, look, this is what we
know about Jesus Christ. Some of you realize that I'm
setting you up. I hope some of you realize I'm
setting you up because that's exactly what we have in the
scriptures. That's exactly what we have in
the Bible. The Bible is the record of the
apostles teachings, John 14 and John 16.
During those passages Jesus makes it clear that when he
leaves he will leave a record for us of his teachings, of his
speakings. And he does that through the
apostles. The apostles are called to mind.
The Holy Spirit calls to mind all the things that Jesus did so
that the apostles can faithfully pass it on.
And they have done so when you come before your the scriptures,
when you humble yourself before the Scriptures, when you set
yourself before the scriptures, you are exactly exposing
yourself to the apostles teachings.
You are in the exact scenario in which we painted earlier where
Jesus is left and left us with the apostles and left us with
the apostles teachings as all they remember and all they teach
us about Jesus Christ. We have that at the scriptures.
How can we not, if we are to be a church that I think what we
are, if we're to be that church at its best, we are going to be
a church that is a learning church, a church that is
growing, a church that is expressing and showing itself in
submission to the Scriptures, not just as a congregation.
It's hard to read this text and see it just speaking
collectively of the whole, but not also recognize that it's
speaking individually of every member, every member here, every
worshipper, every person. That's part of our fellowship.
If we are to be a church at its best is going to be somebody who
is devoted to the apostles teaching, devoted to the
Scriptures. We don't have a Bible study that
is going to fit every perfect schedule.
I realize that, but you have to find a way.
You have to find a way to be submissive to the Word of God,
to set yourself at the feet of the apostles and to hear their
teaching. You absolutely have to do that,
and not just in a ritualistic way.
Look at the word that they use. I love this verb.
And they devoted themselves. They devoted themselves to the
apostles teaching. And when I think of devotion, I
think of a couple of different things.
One is commitment that they're committed to it through the long
haul, that they're dedicated across the board.
Secondly, that that commitment is willing to be to to be
willing to be pursued even at a great cost, that it's costly,
that there's a sacrifice that is involved in it.
Sure, I'm committed to this, but I'm committed to this and it's
going to cost me time and energy and my focus.
And what I really want to do is I submit myself to the apostles
teaching. There's a costly commitment, but
it's also, I have to say, there's a number of projects in
my life that I have to do a lot of things that I have to do
around here at the church. And I try very much so to be
faithful and committed to it. And it cost me a lot of things
because I don't want to do them necessarily, but I pursue them.
And I wouldn't say that those things I'm devoted to.
Just because I'm committed to them, just because they're
costly to me, doesn't mean that I'm devoted to them.
I'm missing something. What am I missing?
I'm missing the the passion, the completeness, the idea that to
be devoted to something is to be full out involved with it, to be
committed completely of yourselves to the thing.
These folks are committed to the word of God.
That's what a church that is spirit filled, a spirit filled
church that is a church at its best is going to be committed to
the word of God in every possible way.
They're going to be devoted to it as we need to be devoted to
the word of God, both collectively but also all of us
individually. Now, this bumps up against a
characteristic that some hot time effects has affected the
American church in the past 200 years to various degrees.
And that is the idea that the more you learn about God, the
less you trust him, That there's some counterintuitive opposition
that happens between trusting the Lord and acting in faith in
the Lord and understanding and knowing Him.
If we understand, if we try too hard to understand things about
the Lord, then we will not trust Him.
We won't act in the spirit filled grace and mercy.
And this passage completely argues the exact opposite, that
a spirit filled church. What church could possibly be
more spirit filled than this one?
The early days of Pentecost where the Holy Spirit visibly
came upon them and they were manifesting the presence of the
Spirit in every way. And yet still they devoted
themselves to the apostles teacher teaching.
They were committed to understand, They were committed
to learn more and to grow more rather than take away from our
faith. The scriptures build our faith
and grow our faith. We need to be a learning church,
a church that is committed to understanding more and more of
the apostles teaching. But that's not all.
Not only are we a learning church first, but the church at
its best is also a church that that is a loving church.
Look in verse 42. And they devoted themselves to
the apostles teaching and the fellowship and the fellowship.
Now this is a Christianese word. If there ever is 1.
You know, we always, you know, let's fellowship together and
those kind of things. And when we think of fellowship,
my guess is that largely what we think of are the doughnuts that
follow our worship service. And it's, you know, the mingling
and the talking and, you know, checking on the weather and did
you get snowed in the other day? And, you know, doing the kind of
small style chit chat in which we do.
And that passes for our fellowship.
And that's part of it. That's an undeniable part of it.
I urge you strongly after the service to go help yourself to
Jerry's Doughnuts, Have a doughnut and sit around and chit
chat with people. It's absolutely true.
But fellowship is that word. And this is one of these Greek
words that you might have heard around the voice, Koinonia
fellowship. The word that's used here is
Koinonia. And Koinonia doesn't mean small
talk. It doesn't mean bumping into
each other. It doesn't mean chitchat.
What it means is common, a common sharing.
They committed themselves to what we have in common.
My friends, what do we have in common?
Think about it, OK? We're all, we all live somewhere
in the Pittsburgh area. We could say that we have that
in common. We all are kind of in the same
economic socioeconomic status in life.
OK, that's kind of in common. But you know, we're not totally
we we all kind of have the same belief structure, but not what
is it that we have in common. We have in common Jesus Christ
and the salvation, the redemption that we have in Jesus
Christ. That is a common bond that holds
us together. That is what it means that we
have fellowship with each other. When I look at you and we have
fellowship together, we are expressing and stressing that
commonality. And this comes true when the
author here elaborates a little bit at this.
Look if you could at verse 44 and all who believed were
together and had all things in common that common.
There is again that repetition of Koinonia, of the idea of
fellowship, of commonness. What do we have in common
together? We have that in common which
leads us to Jesus Christ. And that Jesus Christ commonness
is scary. Now, if you're not uncomfortable
when you read this passage, you're not reading it well.
You're reading it like it's talking about the church 2000
years ago and has nothing to do with us.
And you can't read the Scripture that way.
You cannot read the Scripture that way.
The Holy Spirit, just as he filled that church, is filling
this church and is forcing us to confront totally that scripture
that says, and all who believed were together and they had all
things in common. Verse 45 And they were selling
their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to
all as any had need. A spirit filled church, a church
at its best is a loving church and a loving church is going to
recognize the need of those who around us now.
Now is not the time to tackle biblical economics or biblical
ethics, but we should notice it. You should absolutely notice the
fact that the disciples, the early church, were selling their
possessions so that they could cover the needs of the people
that are around them now. Does that mean that God is
calling all of us to go out and sell all of our homes and all of
our cars and give away our bank accounts?
Maybe, as we know that he's done that with the rich young roller.
He did exactly that. I'm not suspecting that that's
what this passage is telling us. It certainly is not in part
because it's descriptive. It's telling us what they did.
It's not prescriptive telling us what we must do.
But there is a principle that is present here.
Do you see the principle at the end of verse 45?
They were selling their possessions and belongings and
distributing the proceedings as any had need.
Now we're told a little bit later that they were breaking
their breads in their homes. So it's clear that not everybody
sold their homes, not everybody gave everything away.
This is not a call of communism or socialism, but it is an
absolute declaration of insistence that we care for
those who are in need. Every week this church is
confronted by people who are in need from the outside and from
the inside, and it is a horrible accusation against us if we are
ever unable, in a wise and godly, stewardly way, to meet
those needs. If you ever want to hear some of
the great stories of what it means to meet some of those
needs, talk to Jerry, talk to the staff, talk to those who are
meeting those needs and does. Who can describe the wealth of
blessing that the Lord pours out through this church when this
church is at its best? Nobody is without a need that is
being wisely stewardly met. Now, does that mean that
everybody here needs to go out and sell everything?
Probably not. Maybe, but probably not.
But if you can't read this passage and insist that you come
away and relook at your own balance, book, checkbook,
savings account, your finances, if you can't say to yourself I
can do more to care for the needs of my brothers and
sisters, those whom I have in common.
Then again, I can't believe you're reading the scriptures
right. I realize that there are people
that are living on the edge of the bubble here at financially.
I know that to be true. I've spent time talking with
you, etcetera. I still cannot believe that
there's not anybody in this room that cannot hear well this text
and say I've got to look again to see if I can help meet the
needs of any in our fellowship because of the common bonds that
we have in Jesus Christ. Christian fellowship is
Christian caring and Christian caring is Christian sharing.
We have to do better. We do great sometimes, but we
don't do great sometimes. We have to do better if we're
going to be the church at its best, which is a church that is
devoted to the apostles teaching and also to the fellowship.
And looking back at verse 42 them you also see that it is a
church that is devoted to the breaking of bread and the
prayers. Breaking of the bread and the
prayers. Breaking of the bread might
sound a little different to you, but if you've been around church
long enough, you'll know the association.
It's a metaphor here for a communion, that we have the
worship together. So this is a picture of worship
as a whole, a learning church. It is a loving church, is a
worshipping church. It is a church that worships and
it worships well, and it worships according to the Word
of God in the Scriptures. And we can see that worship
played out here again as we see in verse 46, where the author
goes on and says and day by day attending the temple together
and breaking bread in their homes.
What are they doing here? They're worshipping together.
That's breaking the bread and the prayers is collectively
stated here that for them worshipping.
And how are they worshipping? They're worshipping in the
temple together. Now, what do we mean by that,
the imagery here or how do we translate that forward?
We're not likely to travel over to Jerusalem to worship in the
temple. What how do we translate that
forward? They were worshipping
collectively as a group together and individually in family units
in their homes. That's what I understand verse
46 to say. They were attending the temple
together and breaking their bread in their homes.
Their worship, the worship that God calls forward from a spirit
filled church, is going to be a worship where God's people come
together and worship Him and where they learn what it means
to worship the Lord individually.
Where worship, personal worship, becomes an essential part of who
you are as a follower of Jesus Christ.
That worship is present here when we gather together, and
it's present in your life. If you are worshipping the Lord
for one hour a week, you are doomed to dissatisfaction in
your own life. It is impossible not to imagine
that there will not be unfaithfulness that comes about
in your life if your cool life of worship is built around one
hour a week. Worship is something that is
supposed to mark every characteristic, every aspect of
our lives and what kind of worship are we talking about And
again, I I love that there's that they speak to this here.
Look back in verse 43 for a second and awe came upon every
soul. Awe there worship is a is a
reverence to our Lord and if ever we're irreverent in our
worship, we are failing to be biblical.
We're failing to act out a spirit filled church.
Our church needs to be filled and our worship needs to be
filled your personal worship and our collective worship needs to
be filled with an awe inspiring time and trust me, your staff
tried desperately to make worship here an awe inspiring
fact. Now of course it's not up to us
it's up to the spirit that is moving within us.
It's up to the spirit moving within you to bring that awe
about, but we need to do our best for worship to be a
reverent, awe inspiring experience and yet also
collectively look in verse 46 and they were received their
food with glad and generous hearts praising God and having
the favor of all the people. There's a joyous characteristic.
Worship is an off filled experience.
It absolutely is, but it is unforgivable if it is dull.
It's unforgivable if it is boring.
Worship is coming before the Lord Himself.
Of course there's great reverence there.
There's great reverence, but there is absolute joy that is
manifest in the people of God, both in our collective worship
and in our individual worship. This kind of experience is what
it means to be part of a church that is spirit filled, a spirit
filled church, a learning church, a loving church, a
worshiping church, and a church that is preoccupied with its
learning, loving and worship. Could very well miss this 4th
characteristic that is displayed at the end of verse 47.
And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who
were being saved. A learning church is a loving
church, is a worshipping church, is a witnessing church, an
evangelistic church. It is a church whereby Remember
this goes all the way back to God's first initial command.
Wait in the Jerusalem for the power of the Holy Spirit to come
upon you and then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
The the church is called into existence to be a witnessing
church and the witnessing to the world.
This is the connection between the Spirit, the church and the
world. Here we have the world as a
target audience for which the church is faithful and for the
which the church is called into mission by God himself.
God is called the Spirit filled church to be a witnessing
church. And again, you can see the great
effect of Heaven church faithfully in its witness.
And I think you'd have to say we could do so much more.
We could do so much. We are surrounded by people,
literally thousands of people within a mile radius of this
church who desperately need to hear the gospel message.
Thousands, folks, thousands. And we know that this is a
spirit filled church. And the way that the spirit
filled church leads them to do this is articulated at the end
of verse 47. Notice these three
characteristics. First off, a spirit filled
church realizes that we are witnessing to the Lord, but it
is a Lord who does the work. Who does this work here in verse
47. At the end of verse 47, it's the
Lord added to their number. It's the Lord that does the
work. We need to be faithful, the
tools in His hands, but He is the one who does the work.
It is our responsibility to be faithful, to witness and to pray
and to seek and to be devoted to it.
In the same way that we're talking about devotion here, to
be devoted that way. And yet ultimately it is the
Lord's call for for him to work. And what does he do?
He adds day by day, consistently, constantly.
This is not, I'm not making us a plea for an evangelistic
campaign, although I'm all for that.
If we want to do something like that, because it's something
that needs to be a part of our everyday experience.
The Lord adding to our numbers every single day, consistently,
constantly. Secondly and then finally, those
who were being saved, He is adding to the church those who
are being saved. There is a connection to being
saved and being part of the church.
The connection is undeniable here.
This gives up the this this betrays the impossibility of The
Lone Ranger Christian. There is no such thing as a Lone
Ranger Christian. A Christian is tied to the
church because the Lord adds to their number every day those who
are being saved. For those of us who are saved,
we are added into the Church of God and he calls us then to be
part of this perfect church. I think in which you can think
of the church at its best in terms of a series of
relationships. A church at its best is going to
be in relationship of submission to the Word of God, to the
apostles teaching. How effectively is the
relationship that you have personally with the Word of God
in submission? Not something that you have it,
not something that you read it, but that you are submitting
yourself to it devotedly. How effective is this church's
ministry and submission to the Word of God?
Secondly, related to that, how are we related in love towards
one another? A costly love, devoted love
committed, costly, all consuming.
How is your love displayed towards those around you?
Not the people you like, they're the easy ones to love, but the
people that you barely know here.
Are you demonstrating a love relationship because that's
built into what it means to have a spirit filled church at its
best. How is your relationship with
God collectively and individually?
Is your worship filled with reverence?
Is your worship filled with awe? Is your worship filled with joy?
And if it's not, it might be part our problem.
We might need to do better from the front, but I guarantee you,
you got to do better. That relationship is on us to be
that related to God in worship. And finally, how are we related
to the world with witnessing? How effectively do we
communicate the gospel message? How effectively are we exposing
ourselves in sacrifice to those around us who desperately need
the blessings of the call of God?
What's your relationship like with the Scriptures?
With the apostles? What's your relationship like
with others? What's your relationship like
with God? What's your relationship like
with the world? There's got to be something
there for you to take home and ask that question that Peter's
audience asked. Brothers and sisters, what shall
we do? Lord God, we do ask for your
great blessing here upon us as we are confronted why by this
beautiful picture, this beautiful cameo of the church at
its best. We thank you that you have
placed us in a position where we have so many good things going
on here and yet where we have so many opportunities where we can
be better both as a church individuals collectively.
Lord, make it so. We pray so that that great
blessing of ministering to this world, loving one another,
demonstrating our submission to the Scriptures, and worshipping
you comes through in all that we do.
We pray through Jesus Christ our Lord and our Savior.
Amen.